The University of Idaho is prepared for anything, including the Zombie Apocalypse.
While zombies may not be the biggest concern to UI at the moment, Emergency and Security Services is using the popularity of zombie themes to promote its emergency notification system. Students have been receiving emails as part of the UI Emergency Preparedness Program to encourage students to update their emergency contact information, among other things.
UI’s emergency alert system works in several different ways, said Nancy Spink, risk management officer.
“If we had a snow day, what we would attempt to do would be to use the voice and text system,” Spink said. “We would also try to get some messages out on radio. We would try to send an email blast. And we also have a method to pop up a little icon on our web page that says, ‘We’re having a closure for weather proposes.'”
Why alerts?
The Clery Act, a federal statute, requires all institutions of higher learning receiving federal financial aid to inform students and the public of crimes that occur on or near their campuses. Spink said the UI emergency alerts are comparable to AMBER Alerts — they are notifications, not warnings. Other reasons for alerts would be a campus-wide power outage, heavy snow or a flooded building.
“One of the things you want to think about is, ‘Who is the group who needs to know that information?’ So how wide is the distribution that is needed at the moment? The other thing is. ‘How quickly they need to know it?'” Spink said.
A warning is sent out when something will or might happen in the future, such as a tornado warning, Spink said. A notification serves to inform students of an area on campus that may be dangerous, or in the case of a crime, to inform students so they will be aware of such events and take personal precautions to protect themselves.
The UI emergency email, voice and text system uses the student and faculty emergency contact information listed on Vandal Web to send emergency notifications to students. If the information has not been updated, a student or employee may not receive the information.
“Sometimes people will ask, ‘What if I get the message and the person next to me doesn’t?’ And we say, ‘Tell them.’ We hope you will share the information you will get. No system is perfect,” Spink said. “That’s why we’re having a big campaign right now. In order to encourage students to update their information, and that’s why you cannot rely on just one way to alert people.”
The process
As soon as risk management and ESS become aware of a potentially dangerous situation, an emergency response team makes the decision to send out an emergency notification. Lt. David Lehmitz, Moscow Police Department, said the process often starts when MPD calls Matt Dorschel, head of ESS, and Dean of Students Bruce Pitman.
“It’s incident-driven, the more information we can release to them, the better off they can make a decision based on that information,” Lehmitz said. “It’s an immediate interaction. I have direct contact with people on campus, and they disseminate it from there.”
President M. Duane Nellis is notified, along with members of his cabinet. UI policy dictates that the president is the only one who can issue a university closure or lockdown. That decision is passed along to Dorschel and the response group.
From there, the executive branch will focus on how the university will respond long term to the emergency.
Spink said one of the biggest challenges is putting together information to form an accurate picture of what happened.
“If it’s a crime, you’re working with the police, and you’re subject to the information that they can release to you,” Spink said. “The information is all very jumbled and you’re trying to figure out what’s happening.”
Spink said the information gathering process often takes more than an hour.
“And that’s just for something simple,” she said.
The response group follows the Incident Command system model, which is scalable depending on the emergency.
“(Incident Command) always includes the emergency manager, the public information officer, a safety officer, and then, what they call the command staff,” Spink said, “That would be your next level. And then beyond that we would staff certain groups depending on what the hazard is.”
Lehmitz said MPD would also have a representative working with the response group if the incident involved the police, such as in the case of a crime or an earthquake.
The Response
In the H1N1 planning, the group included housing specialists and medical staff. For a lab explosion, health and safety would be a part of the response team, Spink said.
“We’ve gone and trained the top level of a certain level of the Incident Command System courses, so that they’ve got the concepts and they’re ready should they be called on to assist.”
The police would work with the group to establish a parameter around a dangerous area or help with an evacuation, Lehmitz said.
The group has an established meeting site, but also works through on-going communication.
“There are three levels of an emergency. One being the lowest, two being the next, and three being the university is fully engulfed in some kind of thing,” Spink said. “We define it geographically. A level one would be a room, level two would be like a wing of a building, level three would be an entire building.”
However, a level three crime would be treated differently then a level three power-outage.
Spink said weather-related problems are one of the most common incidents the group deals with.
Lehmitz said students should have their own emergency plan in place before something happens.
“Know the emergency procedures prior to them occurring,” Lehmitz said. “It’s a little to late to plan for the emergency once the emergency has already happened.”
Personal responsibility is not everything in safety, but it is a part of it, Spink said.